Temption Of The Heart
by ZaraShade
Summary: Some things are too tempting for even Helen Magnus to resist. Spoilers for Tempus.


**Definite spoilers for the season premiere! Read no further if you haven't seen that! **

**This is set during Helen's 113 year 'vacation'. Because I had to write at least one fic during that time (I say at least because I may write more...). I also had to write something about Helen and Ashley, because it must have been painful for Helen.**

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_Temptation of the Heart_

One hundred and thirteen years. It was a long time, even for someone who had already lived a hundred and sixty odd years. At first, the concept had seemed far too large for her to even contemplate. The sheer magnitude had terrified her since James had first suggested it. But what other choice did she really have? Suicide, though tempting, was not the road she should – or would – take.

So instead, she allowed herself to fade into obscurity. She'd taken James's suggestion. It was a time to fade into the background, to reflect, to think. She had time like never before, really had time. She wasn't the head of the Sanctuary network, she wasn't the infamous Dr Helen Magnus, people weren't clawing at her, weren't demanding things of her. After a time it was refreshing, even if it was simultaneously frustrating.

There were times when she longed to interfere. But she knew she couldn't because that, after all, would go against the very reason she had followed Adam back in time to begin with. But the temptation was always there.

The thing that prevented her from interfering was the memory of those waiting for her back home. Not that they were waiting yet, no they weren't even born, but they would be. They relied on her. She couldn't alter everything, risk changing something, for her own personal gain. She had no idea of the long lasting effects. She could potentially end up killing more people in the long term than those she saved in the present. It wasn't her place to change everything that had and should be.

But it wasn't the waiting, the obscurity and anonymity (which she had previously never known), that tore at her the most. No, what hurt her the most, what really cut her to the core, came much later. Eighty seven years into her journey home to be precise.

Helen had known many people in her long life. She'd lost many people to the harsh call of mortality. It had become something in her life she'd had to accept. Many of them had been companions she'd known for long lengths of time. But the one whose loss had hurt the most the first time, a person whose length of life had been but a mere blip on Helen's (now even longer) life-time, a mere twenty three years. Yet her death had hit her most profoundly, just as her life had done.

Ashley.

Helen was proud of herself on some level for resisting such a temptation for so long. Eighty-seven years into her isolation she'd been so tempted to go and see her daughter she had almost thrown everything away. What was it all for if she would never see her daughter again? But she couldn't. Instead, she'd removed herself from America, from the continent, and had not allowed herself back for almost ten years. She'd toasted the birth of her sweet daughter alone in a bar in some obscure European village. It had been a night of great sadness and great longing for her. She'd wanted to numb the pain away. Now, her daughter's life was like a ticking time bomb. Every year that went by was another year closer to her death. Helen could almost feel the clock ticking and it tore her heart apart.

It had been hard enough losing Ashley the first time, and she had known she would never truly get over it. But it was so much harder this time. This time around, she knew that Ashley would die. She knew when, she knew how, she had been there. She had witnessed her daughter's death the first time and now she knew it would happen but could do nothing to prevent it. Nothing.

It was ninety-seven years into her isolation Helen's resolve had finally wavered. Some things pulled too strongly at the heart strings to ignore. Some calls had to be answered.

So now Helen Magnus stood where she should most definitely not be standing watching her innocent daughter for the first time in almost a century. She stood outside of Ashley's former (or current in her past-self's timeline) primary school watching as the young girl played on the monkey bars, unaware of the woman watching from the sidelines. Her blonde plaits swung as she twisted and swung with magnificent agility, and all the while Helen's heart broke just that little bit more.

She knew she shouldn't have done it. She shouldn't have gone there. She was torturing herself. But, this was one time Helen Magnus hadn't been able to resist. For if there was one temptation that could sway the resolve of Magnus, it was dangling the promise of seeing her daughter just one more time in front of her.

Suddenly, living out one hundred and thirteen years isolated from all those who had meant so much to her didn't seem quite as futile. It had all been worth it, just to see her daughter one last time.


End file.
